Over the Border: A Novel. Whitaker Herman
both arms an’ was being taken back to the base hospital with about a hun’red others. When I landed at the burned station he was a-setting with his legs dangling out of a box-car door, watching ’em bury his compañeros that had died on the way.
“‘Gotter do it quick,’ he says. ‘They don’t keep worth a darn in this clime.’
“He’d met Carleton once in Chihuahua, an’ ’twas him that sent the doctor an’ tol’ me about him while he was packing his grip. Seems that he’d belonged to a gang that worked insurance frauds on American companies. They’d insure some peon that was about ready to croak, paying the premiums themselves an’ c’llecting the insurance after he cashed in. If he lingered ’twas said that they hurried him. That was never quite proved, most of ’em being too far gone to testify when they was resurrected. But the doc had furnished the death certificate, an’ as the Mexicans ain’t so particular about technicalities as our courts, he was sentenced to be shot along with his pals. If he’d been Mexican they’d have done it, too. But Diaz, who liked a bad gringo better than a good greaser, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. He’d actually served twelve years – think of it, hombres! twelve years in a Mexican jail before the revolutionists let him out to serve on their hospital-trains.”
“Twelve years!” Sliver echoed it. “An’ just for croaking a few Mex? He orter ha’ practised in New Mexico. They’d have give him a medal up there.”
After Jake had eaten, the Three sat and smoked till the doctor came down. While eating he made his report. “If I could do any good I’d stay. But he will surely die to-night. It’s going to be mighty hard on that poor girl. Like most of us” – his glance took in all Three – “Carleton didn’t come down here for his health. It’s bad form in Mexico to inquire about a man’s past. Nevertheless, it’s pretty well known that he killed the seducer of his wife and came here with the child when she was four years old. She’s never been away since, and has no kin that she knows of. To run a hacienda, these days, is too big a job for a girl.”
His deep concern showed an underlying goodness. Genuine sadness weighted his words when he gave his last orders from the saddle. “I’ve left an opiate in case he suffers. He may regain consciousness, but don’t be deceived. It will be the last flare before the dark.”
It happened at midnight. An hour before, Bull had put Lee out of the room with gentle force to take needed rest. He had then moved his chair to the door, which opened out on the corredor, to secure the free air his rustler’s lungs demanded. Across the compound he could see the moon’s pale lantern hanging in the branches of a yucca that upraised its maimed and twisted shape on a distant knoll. Northward the mountains loomed, dim and mysterious, in tender light that reduced the vivid chromes and blues of lime-washed adobes in the compound to pale violet and clear gold.
Gringo as he was, his people had lived under Carleton’s hand fuller, freer lives than their forebears had ever known under the Mexican overlords, and, day or night, the patio had never lacked a dozen brownpeonas on their knees at their prayers to the saints. Under thearbol de fuego in the center of the patio below three old crones had erected a small altar, and its guttering candles now threw splashes of gold up through the crimson dusk of the tree. Adding the human note which, by contrast, accentuated the infinite mystery of that still night, their mutterings rose up to Bull; bits of gossip sandwiched between prayers.
“Three crows perched here at sundown, Luisa. Thou knowest what that means?”
“Si; they were devils come for a soul.”
“’Tis a pity that all gringos are doomed to the flame. The señor was a good master to us that had felt the iron fist of the Spaniard.”
“The señorita? She that is so sweet and good. Thinkest thou, Luisa, that she also will be cast into hell?”
“Not if my prayers can save, Pancha. Three great candles, at twenty centavos the candle, have I burned on the altar of Guadalupe for her soul’s sake. There is yet time for her. But the poor señor – ” her pause doomed him. Nevertheless, with greater vigor they returned to their prayers for his saving.
The dim beauty of the night with its spread of moonlit plain, loom of distant mountains, querulous supplication rising under cold stars, combined to produce that awful sense of infinity that shrouds the riddle of life. If Bull was incapable of philosophizing upon it, to translate the feeling in thought, he still came under its sway. While it weighed heavily upon him, there came a gasp and feverish mutter from the bed.
In a second he was there. As he removed the shade from the candle he saw Carleton’s face lit by the last flare. Recognition and intelligence both were there.
“Where is – Lee? Sleeping? Don’t wake her. Listen! She – must not – stay here. Tell William Benson – he’s rough and a bully – but honest and good. Tell him to get a permit – from the revolutionists – to drive my cattle and horses – across to the States. They will bring enough – to keep Lee for many – a year. Be sure – ”
The halting voice suddenly failed. Even while Bull was reaching for a stimulant the soul of the man passed out into the mystery beyond the moonlit plains.
For a while Bull stood looking down upon him. Then, very slowly, he made toward the door that led to the girl’s room. But as her tired face rose before him he stopped and shook his head. “Let her finish her sleep.” Tiptoeing, instead, out to the gallery rail, he leaned down and softly called the old women.
VII: THE RUSTLERS ARE ADOPTED
“Well, I reckon this about lets us out.”
The Three sat under the portales, heavily smoking. Bull puffed meditatively at a strong old pipe. Between lungfuls Sliver toyed absently with a cigarette. The necessities of dealing faro-bank had trained Jake in the labial manipulations of his fat native cigar. As all necessary readjustment could be made with the tongue or lips, his hands were thrust deep in his pockets, a proof of profound mental concentration. It was he who had spoken, and the “this” alluded to Carleton’s funeral, which had taken place the preceding day.
It had been a quiet affair. William Benson, the nearest white neighbor, happened to be in El Paso. Of a round dozen Mexicans of the better class, eleven were wearily waiting on the other side of the border till still another revolution should restore their territorial rights. The Icarzas, Ramon and his father, a bewhiskered hacendado, attended, with Isabel, the dusky beauty of the house. The Lovells, a small American rancher and his two pretty daughters, represented the hundreds ofgringos, miners, ranchers, engineers, smelter men, who would have come in normal times. So these, with Lee, Carleton’s peones, and the Three, had followed the rude ox-cart that bore him to the graveyard of a little adobe church in the hills. Their duty in the premises being thus consummated, the Three had resolved themselves into a committee on ways and means.
“Yes, I s’pose we’ll have to move on.” If not actually dismal, Sliver’s indorsement both expressed regret and invited contradiction.
Bull did not speak. He was watching Lee and the Lovell girls, who had just then stepped out of her room across the patio. Phyllis, the younger, was to stay for a week, while Phœbe, the elder, returned home with her father, who had just brought the horses to the gateway. As Lee walked with her guests the length of the patio she took with her the sympathetic glances of the Three.
Nature mercifully provides her own anesthesia, stunning the victims of her catastrophes till the dangerous period of shock be passed. Later, the sight of Carleton’s riding-whip, spurs, or gloves, carelessly thrown in a corner, would bring a violent recurrence of grief, set her agonizing once more before the great blank wall of death. But just now complete emotional exhaustion left her quiet and calm. Neither had she made any attempt to bury her youth under the frowsy trappings of grief. Even the black velvet riband she wore at her throat was purely accidental, a natural trimming of her dress.
Indeed, the other girls showed more outward sorrow. Though American born, they were almost Spanish in their coloring, and their dusky eyes, dark hair, rich cream skins provided a vivid foil for Lee’s fairness. If their eyes were swollen and